I write this day in defense of the "gret stet" of Louisiana in light of the recent revelations that Rod Blegojevich, the future ex-Governor of Illinois, was purblindly stupid enough to attempt to parlay the vacant Senate seat of President-Elect Obama into campaign contributions and/or jobs for he and his wife.
Now, Louisiana is widely regarded as being rife with corruption. Indeed, a member of the New Orleans City Council is busting rocks after getting caught taking bribes after running a campaign based on "honesty and integrity." Louisiana has had 2 Governors serve time. Edwin Edwards is currently a guest of the Federal Bureau of Penitentiaries after being convicted, along with his son, of influence peddling involving licenses for casinos and a hospital. The freshly defeated Congressman from New Orleans, William Jefferson, is facing federal charges in Washington. As part of the investigation of him, the FBI found $400,000 in a freezer at his home. You can look at the colorful history of Louisiana with the Longs, Huey and Uncle Earl, Ray Nagin, and the pious Christian Senator who is alleged to have rented him some female companionship from time to time and come to the not unreasonable conclusion that it is a basket case.
But really, Louisiana is not appreciably more corrupt than either Mississippi or Alabama. It's just that neither Mississippi nor Alabama are as flamboyant about it. And none of those states can hold a candle to Illinois and Chicago when it comes to out and out bare-knuckled brazen corruption in the political system.
4 Illinois Governors have done time. A whole raft of State Court judges got sent up the river 4 or 5 years ago. Every now and again an alderman will find himself in the cross hairs of the Feds. My personal favorite, at least up until now, was Otto Kerner, who was indicted for bribery when, while Governor, he took some stock from a horse track owner in exchange for adding an extra lane to a highway to accommodate her race track.
The scheme came to light when the race track owner deducted the bribe as a business expense on her taxes as a cost of doing business in Illinois. Naturally, by the time he got indicted Kerner was sitting as a Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. This caused no small amount of trouble for the United States Supreme Court which had to find a District Judge to sit by designation for his trial as well as a whole appellate tribunal to hear the inevitable appeal of his conviction. For the year or so that he was being prosecuted, Kerner took a leave of absence from the bench. This was no biggee for him, seeing as how he had life tenure as a Federal Judge, which assured him a steady paycheck.
However, the attempt by Governor Blagojevich to shake down various applicants for Obama's Senate seat has rightly been described by the Chicago Tribune as a "new low" for a state that thought it had seen it all. I can understand Blago wanting his palm greased. He's a Chicago politician. And let's forget for the moment that he foolishly aired out his plans to nominate someone for the vacant post only if his extortionate demands were met on numerous phones tapped by the FBI which was already taking a look at him. What I really, really don't understand is how he possibly thought he could get away with this scheme. I mean, I presume he hit on every person that contacted him.
He didn't think that the unsuccessful supplicant for the seat-said seat having been vacated by the first black President-Elect in the nation's history- wouldn't be pissed off and wouldn't snitch him off? I mean, granted he doesn't look like the brightest guy in the world. But c'mon. Chicago lawyer and writer Scott Turow said something along the lines of "If I wrote this story, no one would buy it. It's unbelievable."
What Rod Blagojevich did was unbelievable. And that's why when if comes to corruption, Louisiana is relatively pristine and virginal by comparison. It may be crooked. But it is believable.
I only regret that Nelson Algren, Mike Royko and Studs Turkel are not alive to see this, the motherlode.
2 comments:
My husband grew up outside of Chicago. He says the only difference between corrupt IL politicians and corrupt LA politicians is that the IL ones actually do manage to accomplish things that benefit average citizens. But Blagojevich is just off his rocker.
I also love the story about writing off a bribe as a business expense... priceless.
I would tend to agree w/Chris. In Chicago, the streets are clean, it is generally safe, the El runs on time and the garbage gets picked up.
New Orleans is a basket case. Twas ever thus.
Post a Comment